


bits and bobs: unfinished stories

by weatheredlaw



Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Animal Death, Animal Mutilation, Enemies With Benefits, F/F, F/M, Flirting, Frenemies, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Implied Past Child Abuse, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, Mentor/Sidekick, PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 10:13:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm totally gonna finish this one, I swear," she said, and then never finished that one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. pretentious farm house fic [bruce/clint - explicit]

**Author's Note:**

> These are stories I started and then never finished and, coming up on a year or several months now, will probably never finish them. Lots of Marvel/Avengers in here, but there may be a few more so.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This fic is actually like, pretty much done. I could just never figure out how to end it. I re-wrote it like three or four times, but it just never did go anywhere. I love Bruce/Clint as a ship, honestly. I'm very very into it, especially after watching _Earth's Mightiest Heroes_. But this just never did go anywhere. I liked the canon nugget that Tony dropped Bruce off and let him go, but I wanted to do a bit of mid-west soul searching. Bruce's home is borrowed from a house one of my aunt's owned, mixed with the memories of my first elementary school. Idk it was pretentious from the start.

Bruce is going home. 

Ohio is a bus ride away and Tony leaves him with a wad of cash and an open credit line with SI at the Port Authority, things Bruce probably doesn't need and shouldn't use, but is grateful for either way. The bus is too warm and over crowded, people trying to leave the city while the repairs start. Bruce understands the need to run from chaos. Understands it more when the chaos is _you._

He wakes up with a jolt when the driver comes to punch his ticket, tells him where they are. Bruce yanks himself out of the seat, grabs the canvas bag from overhead, and heads out into the midwest air. He sucks it in, humid and sticky and half-sweet from the honey suckle he knows is growing in the dark. 

Smells like home.

 

 

He stays in a bed and breakfast for the night and buys a truck in the morning with Tony's cash. Around here, it's not so strange to have that kind of money on hand for something like this. Bruce realizes what he's missed about this place and smiles as he settles into the front seat and she starts up without a hitch. Every truck's a good truck in these parts. 

The ride to the house is something he could do blindfolded, something he's done a million times, almost a million years ago. He recognizes some of the houses, even some of the people. No one knows him anymore, but they wave just the same, and Bruce waves back. The further down the road he goes, the more space there is between the houses, just what his parents wanted when they moved out here. Bruce remembers walking the length of the road some mornings when his father couldn't get out of bed and his mother had already gone to work to catch the bus. He didn't mind it then and he knows he certainly wouldn't mind it now -- it's still unpaved, still full of the same damn potholes, still lined with the remnants of yellow lilies that grew up in the spring and have long since wilted. The cicadas buzz in the heat, a constant reminder that summer is in full swing.

God, this is _home_ and Bruce has _missed this_ , missed it down to his marrow, right into the pit of his cells. He knows this place better than he knows the rest of the entire world, and he's spent so much time away and out there, it surprises him. Shocks him how much more he remembers about this pitted road than he can about India, about Africa and Russia, places he's been in just the last year. They melt away, and all Bruce knows is _home._

The house is his, technically. His father died and it was left to him, but Bruce ran away from it long before that, even, and he can tell from here it's been a long while since anyone's been inside. He'd half-expected it to be torn down, sold to another family, but Bruce suspects someone's been keeping it for him. He won't go digging -- he knows better than to look this gift horse in the mouth -- but he says a quick thanks to the universe at large as he gets out of the truck and pulls his bag out behind him. 

Everything looks the same.

There are sunflowers growing up all over the yard, veterans of his mother's sporadic seed scattering. The vegeteble garden along the side yard is in ruins, but Bruce sees some of the plants have gone wild, growing over the chicken wire and becoming too crazed even for the rabbits to chew all the way through. He unzips one of the pockets inside his bag and produces a ring of keys that belongs to a life he doesn't have anymore. He doesn't know why he's saved them -- he'll never get back into his old lab, into his old apartment or his old research station. Never get back into his old gym locker or Betty's place. 

But he can get in here.

The lock sticks, hard, but Bruce forces it open with a good heft of his shoulders and stumbles into the house, dust mushrooming up from the ground. When it clears and he's blinked it all from his eyes, he takes it in.

It even smells the same, like mint, just a bit, and old books. The library is still there and there are the corpses of flowers scattered on the kitchen table. Everything needs to be cleaned. Bruce closes the door behind him and flips on a switch -- the light comes on. He wonders, just a bit now, who might have kept his home for him, but knows it would be more trouble than it's worth to know.

He marks it down on the small list of things that have been going good for him lately and starts planning out his work.

 

 

The house needs to be cleaned, _desperately._ Bruce doesn't doubt he can do it, but he hires some help anyway, a woman and her daughter from town who do intensive cleanings like this one. The woman says she knew the Banners, that they had a sweet little boy and such a pleasant home. After Mrs. Banner died, she says, things just weren't the same. Bruce mourns for his own family with her and pours Drain-o down the bathtub.

They come back for three more days, all of them scrubbing the floors on their hands and knees, hauling out any chairs that have rotted away, so Bruce can repair the bottoms in the shed. She tells him to get the roof looked at, make sure it's all set, and leaves a casserole in the fridge. Bruce pays her six hundred dollars and doesn't meet her gaze as she leafs wordlessly through the money. 

When they're gone, he takes deep, clean breaths and runs his hand along the table lining the back of the sofa in the living room. Everything is bright, now, like it used to be. If he closes his eyes, he can imagine his mother fiddling with the radio by the sink, washing the dishes and passing them to Bruce for him to dry. He can see the old cat that didn't belong to them lazing on the window sill, soaking in the sun. He can see the cabinets -- green, he realizes, so much green even here -- and the sink, whiter then than it is now, and the stove, the oven, everything just like it used to be.

Just...lonelier.

His stomach growls and he gives in to the casserole, washing a plate and some silverware and sitting at the newly scrubbed table. It's a lot like it used to be and it's a lot different, too, he thinks. There's something gently oppressive about the kitchen and the light hanging above his head and the chair that seems to be holding him there. He forces himself away from the table and goes onto the porch, settling into one of the chairs. Here, he can see for miles, see anyone coming up the road, any plane flying overhead. Every single star. 

The cicadas buzz. Bruce thinks he needs to go into town for beer.

He catches lights out of the corner of his eye. A car, rumbling up the road. Bruce sets the plate down and slips back inside, going to the armoir by the door and pulling out the bottom drawer. His hand trembles, just for a second, while he unwraps the handgun from a white towel and goes outside, slipping it into the back of the waistband of his jeans. The car stops outside, a cab, he realizes, and a man gets out, pays the cabbie, and hitches his bag over his shoulders.

They meet in the middle, Bruce's hand on the gun that he knows Clint knows is there, Clint's face stretched wide in a sloppy grin. 

"Hey, doc."

"You got a good reason for being here, Barton?"

"What? I can't miss my favorite physicist? Might as well put that gun back, Bruce. I'm not here to bring you in."

"Like hell--"

Barton holds up his hands. "No, no. I'm serious." He drops his bag to the ground. "Look. No weapons. Not apart from the usual, I mean." He pulls a knife from his boot, something like a trench knife Bruce notes, and few throwing knives from under his sleeves. "Force of habit, I guess."

"Why are you here?"

Clint looks behind him, at the expanse of the field across the road, to the blinking house lights even further down, then to the house behind Bruce.

"Same as you, I guess." He shifts in place, looking oddly vulnerable, wound tight like a spring, and sad. "Needed time to clear my head."

 

 

Bruce gives in to his curiousity and makes a call to Tony. 

"I was just talking about you," Tony shouts over the din of what is probably a stellar party. Bruce smiles.

"I'm sure."

"Seriously." The noise dies down. "What's up, big guy?"

"I had a question."

Tony laughs. "Something you can't answer?"

"I'm...not really able to, I guess."

"Well you're calling me from a landline. An American landline. Where are you?"

"Ohio. My old house." Silence. "Tony."

"Why are you there, Bruce?" 

Bruce frowns at his tone, severe and sober and caustic. "Because I...I needed time to clear my head." He glances into the living room where Clint's passed out on the couch and smiles. "Is there a problem?"

"No." Tony's voice brightens. "There isn't. I just...I thought you were leaving the country."

"Wasn't ready to yet." Bruce leans against the counter. "Anyway I had a question. About the house actually."

"Shoot."

"Someone's kept it up. Or at least, turned the power on recently. And made sure it hasn't been sold or torn down. Real nice of them, really."

"Ross?"

"Doubtful. Fury gave me a long speech I'll tentatively call, 'Why Dickbag McGee won't be living in your ass anymore,' which was nice of him." Tony laughs. "He'll probably be on me as soon as I leave the country, which I will, eventually. Just...not now." Bruce shifts. "You're not...you haven't--"

"Have I been keeping up your childhood home?" He laughs harder. "I'll look into it, if you want me to."

"It'd be nice. It's just...hard to believe someone forgot about it. It's a good house."

"I'll bet." Tony sounds happy, almost proud. "Look I have to get back inside and talk about how awesome I am. But call again, and I'll keep you posted. _Yeah I'm coming, Jesus!_ " Tony hangs up then and Bruce puts the phone back up on the hook. Someone's been taking care of that, too. Clint snores from the sofa when Bruce turns out the light. He watches him for a minute, then turns around and heads upstairs. 

 

 

Bruce wakes up a seven to the smell of breakfast and throws himself out of bed. He remembers that Clint is downstairs and reasons that is the reason, even if "Clint" and "breakfast" don't really match up in his head. _Breathe_ , he murmurs. _Breathe._ He's moved the gun to his room. Clint probably already knows where it is. 

"Are you...cooking breakfast?" he asks, coming downstairs into the kitchen. Clint's wearing Bruce's mother's old apron and expertly tossing pancakes in the cast iron with a breathtaking efficiency.

"Yeah," he says smugly. He glances over at Bruce and continues flipping, not missing a single toss. 

"Where'd--"

"Borrowed your truck and went into town." Bruce balks. "Easy, tiger, it wasn't as bad as you think it was. Or bad at all. I just went into town, got some breakfast fixins, and came back here. You're welcome, by the way." He points to the bacon and eggs on the table and sets a plate of pancakes next to it. "Just a thanks, for letting me crash."

"Didn't have much choice," Bruce mutters, but there's no malice behind it. His stomach wins over and he sits down, piling his plate with food. 

Clint looks around. "So this is where you grew up?" Bruce nods. "Nice place. Like, _really_ nice."

"It had its moments."

"I know the feeling." Clint inhales three pieces of bacon. "So why here?"

Bruce stops eating, setting his fork down and looking out the window. He could go into the web of thoughts that led to here, that made him want to go _home._

"Hey." Bruce looks up, and Clint is smiling. Sort of like he knows. "It's okay. Sometimes you just need to go home."

 

 

Bruce doesn't know how long Clint wants to stay anymore than he knows how long he's going to stay himself. He heads out after breakfast to work on the bottom of the library chairs that have fallen out and finds Clint trailing him silently, hands deep in his pockets. "I wanna earn my keep," he says, and Bruce just smiles, pushing the shed door open. He finds his father's old radio and replaces the batteries before turning it on. There's a lot of country music out here, but Clint doesn't complain. Bruce doesn't even have to tell him what he wants to do -- Clint sees the turned over chairs and immediately tears out the broken bottoms and grabs the slats of wood Bruce brought down when he was cleaning and starts lining them up, his mouth full of nails in a few minutes. 

Bruce thinks he could watch Clint work for ages -- everything he does is done with grace and precision and attention to detail. He would have made an excellent physicist. And if Clint notices that Bruce has only done one chair while he's done two and almost a third, he doesn't say anything. 

They work through lunch without a thought, until Clint drops his hammer and Bruce has finished the last chair.

"That was bizarrely satisfying," Clint announces, standing and grinning. Bruce nods wordlessly. "Also I'm starving. I saw a casserole in your fridge."

"I need to get more food."

"We'll do that tonight. It'll be like a date. You can pay for everything."

"Charge it to my Stark Platinum."

"Aw, man, Tony give you one of those, too?"

"Mmhm."

"Plan. _Ruined._ " 

Bruce laughs and they go inside, pulling down some plates and heating up the casserole. Bruce finds himself talking about the house without really realizing it, showing Clint where his mother kept her jars of sunflower seeds, where the TV was, where they sat every night at dinner, when they ate it together. He talks quietly for a while, probably more than he has in a long time to one person. Clint just nods, like it's all the most interesting story he's ever heard, and when Bruce stops, he just smiles.

"Your life was a sack of shit, wasn't it?"

Bruce laughs. "Yeah. It really was."

Bruce doesn't ask Clint to share, but he sort of does anyway. It's quiet give-and-take between them. There's the understanding that they were thrown into the oncoming storm alone, expected to survive or die, odds never really in their favor. Bruce picks up their empty plates after a while and runs a sink of hot, soapy water. Clint settles next to him and dries when he's supposed to. Their shoulders brush and their hands meet stupidly under the water until Clint is crowding into Bruce's space and pressing hot, fleeing kisses over his lips and neck. Bruce grips him with wet hands and kisses back, breathing him in and clinging to what feels like space and the edge of everything and trying not to fall away.

"Was I wrong?" Clint murmurs into his mouth. "Did I--"

"No. No you weren't wrong. _Jesus_." Bruce kisses him again, doesn't want to talk, just wants to touch and taste and feel. Clint is warm and hums like a cicada under his hands, feels like summer and rain. Clint sucks Bruce's lip into his mouth and swipes his tongue along his chin. "Come to bed with me, doc." He kisses the length of Bruce's neck, nips his jugular and digs his knee against the bulge in Bruce's jeans. "S'good," he mumbles. "Let's go to bed."

"Clint--"

Clint pulls back, brows knitted together, mouth curled down in a way that Bruce wishes it wouldn't, wants to kiss back into a smile.

"What, like, you can't?"

"No, I just--"

"Oh."

"Clint, I--"

"Look, it's cool. I get it. You just don't want to dive right into the deep end. I get it. It's fine. That's not why I did it anyway." He leans forward and kisses Bruce briefly one more time and winks. "Gonna go up to my fancy new guest room. Til' morning, doc."

And then he's gone, and Bruce feels like he's taken all the clean, good air with him. Bruce falls back against the counter, body thrumming with need, not sure of what he's done at all. 

 

 

In the morning, Clint isn't even fazed by the night before -- he does swat Bruce on the ass a few times for good measure, probably -- and they get right back into the rhythm of living around and with one another.

Bruce starts obsessively rearranging the books in the library, pulling apart his father nonsensical way of organizing them and sorting them subject and binding width, realizing half-way through he's acting just as crazy about it. Clint comes in a watches, repairing his bow as Bruce tugs entire rows from the shelves and rearranges them. In the end, it doesn't make any more sense than it did. Bruce collapses into one of the newly finished chairs and closes his eyes.

"Was this your dad's office?" Clint asks from his right. Bruce nods. "Real tidy."

"He was a clean man."

"Always the ones you need to watch out for." Bruce huffs and opens his eyes. Clint is standing in front of him. "Hi," he says, and leans down. Bruce pushes up to meet his lips, dragging him into the chair to suck relentlessly at his lips and tongue. Clint groans into it, crowding Bruce's lap and pushing his hands under Bruce's shirt, over his chest. "If I tell you I've had a crush on you since we found you naked in front of a Burberry would you believe me?"

"Mmhm."

"Good."

Outside it's getting cloudy, and Bruce knows a storm will roll in fast. He thinks about the roof, briefly, but can't remember why -- Clint is undoing Bruce's jeans and reaching between them to grab his dick and Bruce is lost, completely lost in hot, fleeting touches and wondering why he didn't do this the night before. 

The phone rings.

"Ignore it," Clint mutters, but Bruce thinks he knows who it is.

"I have to--"

" _Ugh._ " Clint pushes himself off and Bruce fixes his pants, wincing as he covers his cock again.

"Just...hold that thought." He kisses Clint hard and runs into the kitchen. "Tony?"

"Afternoon, princess. You sound happy."

Bruce laughs. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Well I looked into your house mystery, Nancy Drew, and I got you some clues or whatever. Answers." Bruce hears ice clink in a glass and the sound of Pepper's voice. " _Babe, hold on, my boyfriend's on the phone._ Anyway, answers." He swallows something. "So, basically, SHIELD owns your house."

"What?"

"Mmhm. I did a lot of digging, meaning I did a lot of poking Nick Fury in his remaining eye until he gave in, mostly because it's not like an actual big deal if you know or not, considering you've got a handler out there. Right? There's an agent with you."

"Barton."

"S'what he said. Anyway, your house was owned by you after your old man died. Some old non-residential housing laws kept it yours until you became a fugitive, basically, but it fell through the cracks. Eventually the deed to the house came up for review and they handed the property over to the state. Water and electricity'd been out for years already, pretty much since your dad died. After you came back to New York the first time and managed to get away again, SHIELD started intensively tracking you, telling Ross to back down. THey bought a few places up around the country where they thought you might go, few places around the globe, too. Your house included. SHIELD's been keeping the place in general working order for a while now."

"That it?" Bruce asks quietly. 

"Mmhm. _Yes, Pepper, I'll be there in a minute._ She is extremely needy today. Anywho, that float your boat?"

"Yeah. I uh...yeah."

"You okay? You sound--"

"I'm fine. I'm...I need to go. But. Thank you. For digging that up."

"Maybe I shouldn't have," Tony says quietly.

"No." Bruce shifts the phone. "No," he says, more firmly. "Thank you." 

They hang up. Bruce takes deep, calming breaths, dropping his head to the wall next to the phone. Clint calls out from the library and Bruce turns on his heel, striding in and grabbing Clint by the back of his shirt -- "Dude what the _fuck?_ " -- and pulling him through the house. He knows Clint could get free, he can feel the muscles in his back working, but Clint doesn't fight.

Outside, it begins to pour.

"Why are you here?" Bruce shoves Clint out the door and off the porch. He stumbles in the rain, watching Bruce with a trained eye. "Why did they send _you?_ "

"What did Tony tell you?"

"How do you know?"

"Fury knew what you'd do. You're getting too predictable, Bruce. He knew you'd come here, he knew you'd get curious, knew you'd want to know about the house. He gave that information up, it doesn't _matter_ to him."

Bruce growls. " _Why are you here?_ "

"Because they sent me!" Clint shouts. The storm is getting louder. "Because you're a volitile, unbalanced, radioactive, _rage beast_ and they sent me to make sure you didn't level a small fucking town, Banner! Because Ross isn't hunting you right now, but that doesn't mean you're just _safe_. You think Hydra wouldn't kill to have your blood? Wouldn't kill to get their hands on you? You're the genius here, Bruce, you figure this out!"

"But why _you?_ "

Clint _laughs_ and it's wholly and completely unpleasant sounding, striking Bruce to the bone. He looks up into the rain, back to Bruce, lips curled in a snarl. 

"Why do you _think_?"

And now Bruce is shaking, trying to grasp this, trying to understand _this_. Clint watches him and Bruce watches himself, watches from above himself until there is nothing _but_ himself. 

He reaches out, now, and Clint doesn't pull away, doesn't flinch or push. He comes close and Bruce feels like he might suffocate in the space of Clint's neck, lips pressed to cold skin, teeth fluttering over bone. 

"Since Burberry?" Bruce says, pulling back. 

Clint grins. "Since Burberry."

 

 

Bruce asks, "What the hell is Burberry?" somewhere between stripping Clint of his clothes and shoving him onto the mattress.

" _What_? Oh my _God_ why are you talking right now, it's not--"

"What's Burberry?" Bruce asks again, curling his hand around Clint's erection, twisting experimentally. Clint groans and slams his head back repeatedly into the pillows. Bruce grins.

"It's a fucking _clothing store_ or something. That scarf you wrapped yourself in cost like seven hundred dollars, _Jesus Christ_ , Banner, would you--"

"I would really like you to fuck me." Bruce surprises himself, the words tumbling out before he can catch them. He hasn't gotten fucked in a while, hasn't been properly naked -- with someone else, sweating and wanting, cock flushed and hard against his belly -- in even longer. Waking up naked in the middle of a crater tends not to lend itself to any kind of arousal. 

"And I would really like to do whatever you want me to," Clint mutters, rushing forward and pulling Bruce in for a kiss. 

"But like this," Bruce adds, looking down at Clint and running a hand over his cock. "Up here. I want...I need--"

"I get it," Clint says quietly. "I do." 

Bruce ducks his head, feeling stupid and needed all at once, and leans over the side of the mattress, fishing lube and a condom out of his bag. Clint snags the lube, popping the cap and coating his fingers while Bruce sits back on his knees and lets Clint draw a wet line over the cleft of his ass before pushing through, circling his hole, and dipping in one slick finger. His body tightens, but Clint waits, watches his face, and then Bruce relaxes, letting it all go.

"Been a while?"

Bruce sighs. "Long enough."

"Make it good for you," Clint mumbles against his mouth and Bruce just holds him, nods, _I know,_ he doesn't say. _I know._

Bruce's new favorite thing might be the way Clint looks up at him as he stretches and preps Bruce with slick fingers and a wide smile. His new favorite thing might be the way Clint's eyes glaze over as he watches Bruce rolls a condom over Clint's cock and he lower himself down, sinking and taking him in. Bruce throws out a hand, catches himself on the headboard and sinks down more, so full and stretched and aching. 

"Holy fuck--" Clint arches his back and Bruce feels it, right along his spine. Cling reaches up and grabs Bruce's hand on the headboard, twisting their fingers together against the metal, everything banging steadily against the wall the mattresses groaning mutinously. "Come on, come that's good. God you're gorgeous. Just like that--" Clint drops a steady stream of encouragements that Bruce can't help but laugh over, can't help but stop moving and kiss him, swallow him, suck on his tongue and smile. "Gonna come on my cock? That all it takes for you?"

"If you're good enough," Bruce manages. And that sets Clint off. His hips punch up, hard, and Bruce shouts, feeling every single inch of Clint sliding in and out.


	2. threesome by the sea [bruce/natasha/clint]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The whole idea behind this was that Natasha was a supposed widow living in a very large house by the sea, Clint being her sailor husband who had supposedly died. I'd been watching _The Ghost and Mrs. Muir_ so honestly you can just blame that. Bruce was a professor who was running from the law. Eventually they would all fall in love. I imagined it to be multi-chaptered but it never panned out.

The ad says one Miss Romanov needs a spare set of hands to help maintain her estate. Bruce turns the paper over, realizes with a lerch that it's from three days ago. The odds of the position being open, at the rate of pay she's offering, are slim to none. Bruce pays for the cab out to the house anyway, figures it can't hurt just to ask. 

The house is beautiful, if old. Nestled by the sea, Miss Romanov has a clear view of every ship coming to port, and spots a brass telescope on the uppermost balcony. He asks the cabbie to wait, but Bruce knows if he's longer than ten minutes, he'll be walking back to town. Miss Romanov herself isn't even in the house -- she's hunched over a flower bed, red curls drawn up haphazardly on top of her head, a white t-shirt sticking to her back. Bruce clears his throat.

"Pay's been reduced," she says without preamble.

"Ma'am?"

Miss Romanov pushes herself up, peeling off her gloves and tossing them into a bucket. "The pay. It's been reduced two hundred a month."

"So you haven't filled it?" Bruce counters. She shakes her head. "Still looking to, though." 

"If you're interested." 

Bruce looks over the house, toward the stables and the garden. It looks like a lot of work, different from what Bruce has been doing for the past few years, since the end of the war. He can see the parts that need to be cared for, which need the most work. It's a lot, he thinks, for one person. Just what he's looking for.

 

 

Bruce pays for the cab and takes his battered suitcase into the house. Miss Romanov introduces herself as Natasha, insists Bruce refer to her as such. He follows her up the stairs, answers when she asks his name, how long he's been in town. That's all she asks, and Bruce is grateful. She leads him to the end of the hall and points to an open door. "You'll sleep here. It was painted at the start of the summer." Bruce nods and steps in at her suggestion, setting his suitcase by the door and inspecting the room. It's small, with a metal frame bed and scrubbed wooden floors. A weathered chest of drawers is pushed against one wall, a glass lamp perched on a bedside table. Bruce's eyes are drawn immediately to a dark bookcase on the wall opposite the bed, and the few empty shelves it still has. The room is cramped enough already, but with everything pushed into it, it gives Bruce a quiet, secure feeling.

"It's wonderful," he says, but when he turns to smile at her, Natasha is already gone, red hair vanishing down the stairs.

Bruce unpacks his clothes into the dresser and hangs up the only suit he owns on a hook by the door. The bed creaks when he sits on it, but it's better than the busses he's been catching from one side of the country to the other, and he's terribly tempted to lay back and sleep until morning. He changes instead from his travelling clothes into a pair of worn denim jeans and plaid shirt. Natasha is in the kitchen, stirring a large steel pot. 

"Get settled?" Bruce nods. "Vegetable stew," she says. Bruce takes the opportunity to get acquainted with the cabinets, finds a pair of bowls and some spoons. "Do you cook?"

"I can," he offers.

"I'll have you cook some days, if you don't mind. You saw the size of the property?"

"It's impressive."

"It's a lot of work," she corrects. "You'll cook some nights, tend the garden every day, and keep the horses cared for. My father left three of them to me when he died, and they're all terrible." She ladles stew into the bowls. "I want to paint the house this summer, and the roof needs repaired over the library before a storm hits." Bruce waits for her to sit and begin eating before awkwardly pulling out a chair opposite her and picking up his spoon. He suddenly realizes how hungry he is, how little he's eaten since he got on the first train in California. 

"Where are you from, Mr. Banner?"

"Bruce is fine."

She pauses over her stew. "Bruce."

"I'm from Ohio, originally." 

"You're a long ways from home."

"I have been for a while." He doesn't tell her about Prague, the months spent in a lab in Romania, the week in the London flat, sleeping through the rain and taking pictures of his notes before burning them in the fireplace. He wonders, briefly, if it's fair to do this. To be hiding here, in her big house with all its acres and rooms. "I was a professor," he offers, because it seems fair.

"That's quite the career change."

"I needed a break."

She stops eating then, and Bruce thinks she must know, must see right through him. If she does, if she can tell at all, she doesn't say anything. They eat in silence, until Natasha sets down her spoon and Bruce offers to clean the dishes. 

"I'll be in the library, if you need me," she says, and disappears. Bruce is itching to follow her into the library, wants to see it for himself. He can almost feel the size of it, the importance of it. Instead, stands at the kitchen sink, absently washing the bowls, thinking about the library _he_ left behind. He can see a cat prowling in the yard, shoulders hunched, hunting, and he wonders if it's Natasha's. Wonders if she really has neighbors at all. Wonders if they talk.

 

 

Natasha had said the horses were terrible, which Bruce had not understood. He had taken care of horses as a boy, visiting his grandfather in the summers with his mother and learning to ride. Now, standing at the door of the stable and listening to the restless, anxious beats of their hooves on the straw-covered floor, Bruce realizes what she meant. 

It takes him twenty minutes to water and feed the horses, mostly because they keep knocking the bucket of water out of his hand and onto his clothes. Soaked, he opts for the hose and fills their trough from a safe distance, scowling at them and trying to dry in the sun. 

"I warned you," Natasha says at lunch. She spreads everything out on a picnic table in the yard -- fresh corn and pickled beets, a chicken salad and thick, warm bread. While Bruce was taking his second, third, and fourth showers of the day, Natasha had been cooking and installing a new faucet on the kitchen sink.

"I can do these things," Bruce says quickly, but she holds up a hand.

"It's shared work." She fills his plate with food. "Eat up. There's more to do." Bruce looks at his plate, full of more food than he's probably ever eaten at one time in his life. Natasha cleans her entire plate, and looks as though she expects him to do the same. Bruce shovels it all complacently in his mouth, thinks he's never been this full before. 

An hour later, he's grateful for the energy as he unscrews the shutters from the side of the house and gets to work sanding off the old paint. Natasha goes into town to pick up primer and a new color for the shutters and the house itself, coming back with a rich blue and a soft, off-white. She is at peace, working next to him. She picks up a sander and goes after one of the shutters herself, humming under her breath. Bruce likes the quiet -- it's nice not to have a prying voice in his ear, and Natasha doesn't seem to care much at all where Bruce came from or why he isn't teaching anymore. 

Natasha is an intensely terrifying sort of beauty -- Bruce watches a bead of sweat slip down the expand of her neck and almost sands the skin of his knuckles off -- and she seems to know it. He catches her catching him _watching_ her, and she smiles, a quiet, knowing sort of smile, and continues to work. It's sundown by the time they finish the shutters and Bruce's hands are aching. He enjoys physical labor, but he taught theoretical physics for ten years. It doesn't lend itself to calloused hands.

She asks him to cook her something, hauling herself onto the counter and filing her nails. Bruce feels something catch in his throat, calls it desire, and swallows. 

"Do you have eggplant?" 

They eat roasted eggplant and leftover chicken salad with beers and a cobbler Natasha fishes out of the freezer. Bruce has never eaten so much good food. Everything feels warm and he's tired, so _tired_ and it's not even eight o'clock. They stand side by side at the sink and clean, fingers brushing in the water. Natasha is unnerved. Bruce's body is on fire. 

"Why'd you stop being a teacher?" she asks quietly. Bruce realizes suddenly that it doesn't bother him to tell her -- she's fed him and worked him and smiled at him. He isn't sure if she trusts him, or vice versa, but he likes her enough to begin to let the truth unravel.

"I had an accident. I got into trouble."

"Are you wanted?" She leans back against the counter. Bruce shakes his head. "Wouldn't matter," she decides, drying a bowl. "Did you leave a girl behind?" Bruce nods. "Figured as much. What was her name?"

"Betty."

"She was too young for you." Bruce hums his assent and puts the forks away. "You're running for yourself then."

"I suppose so. I was being suffocated by my own life. I snapped. I got fired."

"That's it."

"Essentially." This seems to be enough for Natasha, who puts away the last few dishes and announces she's going to bed.

Bruce desperately needs to shower, and he desperately needs to jerk off, for reasons he'd rather not tell himself. That talking about Betty, in any capacity, makes him _hungry_ , that watching Natasha work has made him ragged with want. He comes with a twist of his hand on his cock in the shower, closes his eyes against the white-out in his head, and turns off the water. 

He sleeps like the dead, tired, fucked out and sore. 

 

 

Bruce wakes up to the sounds of early morning rain slapping the window. He dresses and pulls on a coat, running outisde to check on the horses -- the trough is full of rainwater and their staying well away from the open doors. He drip-dries by the front door and heads back in.

"Pancakes," Natasha says, setting a stack of them at his now-apparent place at the table. Bruce can't actually remember the last time he had pancakes, and doesn't turn them away. Natasha eats twice as much as him, maybe out of spite for his own angled, thin body. Bruce cuts his stack into triangles, eats them slowly. "It'll rain all day. Storm's off the sea, they last a while." Bruce nods. "I need you to repair the bottoms of a few chairs in the library for me, but you'll have to go into town to get the wood for it." She reaches behind her on the counter and grabs a piece of paper. "This is where you'll find it, if you take the truck into town. It has to be these sizes. Al at the store knows what I need, he'll be good to you." Bruce swallows his food with a healthy drink of milk. "And check the PO Box while you're down there, too," she adds, reaching for the keys hanging on the wall. She pulls a small key off one of the hooks and hands it to him with the paper. "Box 4024."

"Yes, ma'am." 

"Please." Natasha frowns. "Don't say that."

"I...yeah. Alright."

She nods and wipes her mouth on a napkin. "I'll clean up here if you want to head into town. Truck keys," she says, tossing them his way. Bruce catches them, slips them in his pocket next to the list for the wood and the mailbox key. Natasha gets up and turns to the sink, effectively pulling up the wall between them. Bruce nods to no one and heads outside, slipping on his boots at the door and pulling his jacket tighter around him. The rain's a light drizzel, but he can see thicker thunderheads looming in the distance and contemplates buying some potatoes and onions in town and making a thick soup for dinner.

The cab ride had seemed longer, carefully taking the bends and curves of the rodes up to the house. Bruce picks up his speed and head down the slope toward town, making it in less than twenty. There's the problem, of course, that he doesn't know where the hell anything is, but main street seems like a good place to start. He parks and pulls his hood up, looking down the walk and finally eyeing a sign with _Al's Supplies_ , painted in thick gold lettering.

"You're Miss Romanov's new hand?" Al asks, when Bruce tells him what he needs. "Good customer. Always picks us over that damn Home Depot down the road." Bruce makes a noncommital noise. He hadn't known there was another town down the road, let along a damn Home Depot. He pays for the wood and promises to send Natasha Al's greetings and heads back to the truck, tucking the wood in front of the passenger seat to protect it from the rain. 

It takes him a bit longer to find the post office, but only because he wanders for a bit, stopping by the grocer's and getting ingredients for soup and a bottle of wine. People seem to know exactly who he is, who's sent him down the hill. Most folks nod and smile and go about their business. Some want to know what he's doing up there, how Natasha's doing. They ask with a reserved sadness that makes Bruce wonder. He puts the groceries in the truck and finally makes it to the post office, going through the same song and dance with a woman taping up packages before he heads to box 4024. 

"Did you see him?" Bruce freezes, but the women speaking are another row of boxes in front of him, gossiping between one another. He tries hard to ignore it, tries to pretend they aren't talking about the implications of Bruce, alone in the house with Natasha Romanov. What it might mean. 

He pauses when he hears, "Always thought she was a whore," contemplates stepping around the corner to confront them. 

Bruce doesn't know Natasha very well, but he knows that he'd raise hell to protect her reputation.

He doubts she'd appreciate it, as subtle as she is, and just leaves. His blood's boiling, running hotter than it has in a while, a quick flush riding up his neck. The mail trembling in his hands. He gets back to the truck, closes his eyes and does the set of breathing exercises his court-appointed shrink taught him, back when he was still smart enough to keep employed, but fucked up enough to warrant things like a court-appointed therapist. 

By the time he makes it back to the house, he's completely calm, balancing the bags on top of one another and fumbling his way back inside.

"You were successful." Natasha takes the groceries from him. "Soup?"

"That's the plan."

"I'll let you take care of it then. How's Al?" Bruce smiles and heads into the library after her, talks quietly about town, leaving out the bit from the post office. Maybe it'd been naive of him to assume Natasha had no reputation. She was, afterall, a single woman living in a large house all on her own in a small town -- it was cinematic, literary logic. Naturally, she would be feared, by some, in small ways. 

Bruce gets to work turning over the chairs that need to be fixed, listening to the sounds of Natasha moving in the attic. He glances toward the ceiling of the library, remembering that the roof there needed to be repaired. Nothing is leaking, but he makes a mental note to check with her about it. 

"Did they talk about me?"

Bruce turns around. Natasha's come back down stairs, holding a crate of books in her arms.

"I didn't--"

"Everyone talks about me. It's one of their favorite pasttimes."

"Ah."

"Al's my only real friend." She sets the crate down and settles into one of the arm chairs. "I've lived up here on my own for a year now. I haven't...I've hired people off and on since then. I never go into town. There's no point. Makes them nervous, I think."

"You're an enigma."

"To you, maybe. They all know what happened."

"People enjoy their talk," Bruce murmurs. "They enjoy their rumors."

"They do. And it doesn't help that I just can't get around to defending myself. Talk is only talk, Bruce."

"Until it becomes violence."

"I suppose." Natasha stands again. "Finish this tomorrow. I'd like some of that soup, I think." She leaves the room so silently, Bruce is sure he wouldn't have known she'd gone if he weren't watching. And of course, he's watching.

 

 

In the morning, Bruce gets up early, takes care of the animals, and finds a ladder in the tool shed. The sky in nearly cloudless, and only the waterlogged ground is evidence that it rained at all. He gets up onto the roof over the library and inspect the damage, takes a sample of the roof material, and decides he'll go back Al's this week. 

"You're busy."

"Libraries need proper protection," Bruce explains, showing her the piece of roofing. She nods, stirring a skillet of fried potatoes and onions. Bruce offers to make eggs. 

"You've survived three days," Natasha says quietly, piling her plate with food. "How does it feel?"

"Was I not meant to?"

She shrugs. "The longest bit of help I've had was two months. We'll see how you do, I suppose." There's a hint of a challenge in her voice, like she knows Bruce might not be here in three more days. Bruce pauses around a forkful of food, and decides then and there -- he'll prove her wrong. Prove himself wrong.

It's been a while since he's stayed in one place, too.


	3. this fic has a dead deer in it [clint/kate]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I have this weird aunt (I have a lot of aunts) and she and her family killed a deer and put it in their tub and it was weird. But I wanted to write about it. I'll probably use the story again at some point, but here it is for the first time. This was supposed to, in my dreams, turn out to be a very long Clint/Kate fic. I actually want to finish this one so it may disappear from here at some point, but, for now, it's here.

Clint remembers being in Miami and watching a lady in a Suburban hit one of those birds of paradise. He remembers being in a Hallmark store the day before, mailing something back to New York, something that got lost in the mail and didn't really matter later anyway. He remembers the old lady behind the counter handing him a pad of stamps, all painted with two pairs of those birds on them and saying, "They mate for life, you know." Clint didn't want to tell her that shit like that only happened on stamps. 

But he remembers watching that Suburban make a hard left trying to avoid a pot hole and nailing one of those birds. He remembers the way she'd spilled out of her car, face alight with terror. He remembers her kneeling by the bird, its partner standing by the side of the road.

No, its mate.

Its mate, standing by the side of the road, crying. It's the only way he could describe it. Like a cry. Like this earth shattering, heart ripping _cry_ as it watched this lady in a Suburban kneel by its dead mate and wail because she had just broken something that only happened on stamps. 

 

 

 

_Dead deer._

Kate promises she'll make breakfast if he'll let her crash on the sleeper sofa and she makes good enough pancakes for Clint to agree. 

He lets her use the shower first, opting to crash on the sofa and let Lucky use his lap as a pillow. The weather channel says it's going to snow on New Year's Eve. Big surprise. Stark's having a shindy. He could bring Katie, teach her to--

" _Clint!_ "

Lucky's up before Clint even registers Kate's voice, yelping and sliding into the wall as he runs to the bathroom. Clint's all legs behind him, throwing himself off the couch just to get at her. She's stumbling out of the bathroom, her feet covered in blood, towel hanging off her torso. Clint would be distracted if there wasn't so much blood all over the cheap linoleum. She slips. Clint takes a knee. "Katie. _Kate._ What'd you--"

"Shower." She points with a trembling finger at the bathtub, its curtain painted red, drying into brown. Clint swears he isn't seeing what he's seeing. He _knows_ he isn't seeing what he's seeing.

Antlers. Neck. Guts and bone. The stinking body of a deer, its tongue hanging limp from its broken jaw, one eye popped out, the other bleeding. An arrow in its heart.

_Dead deer._

"Barney." 

 

 

 

It was a long time ago, see, and Clint probably isn't even remembering it right. His parents died when he was young, too young to really remember, but there are some things that stick. 

A dead deer in the fall, its body contorted and blood filling the bathtub. 

All Clint remembers is his father killed it, and he left its body in the tub and broke off its ribs and drunkenly cooked them for dinner. Clint doesn't remember eating it, but then, he doesn't remember eating much at all when he was a runt. Now he looks at the mess Barney's made of his bathroom and he looks at Kate in the hall, her entire body trembling as she struggles to hold the towel over her chest and he think that this is another mess he might not ever be able to clean up. 

"Hey. C'mere." He takes a washrag from under the sink and wets it, kneeling at her feet slowly. "You okay?"

"No."

"Yeah, I didn't think so." He wraps his hand gently around her ankle and lifts it, taking the rag to her foot and beginning to wipe the skin clean. Kate just watches as he washes them, until the rag is soaked in blood and her heels are pale again. "Get dressed and go see if Aimee's up. See if you can shower there. Stay there until I call you." Kate nods and goes to his room to grab her spare stash of clothes from his closet. He waits until she's gone before he looks back at the mess. "Don't," he says, when he catches Lucky lapping at a pool of blood. "Just...just don't."

 

 

 

It takes a few days, but Clint finally gets the metallic stench of blood out of his house. Kate hasn't come back since he sent her to shower at Aimee's, and a text from her later that night let him know that Tommy came by to pick her up. When she finally does show up again, they don't mention the deer at all. 

"So Barney's in town then?" is as close as they get.

"Guess so." He hands her a cup of coffee. "He always had a penchant for theatrics."

"Runs in the family I guess."

"Ha." Clint shakes his head. "He said he'd be back. I mean, I always knew...I always knew he was gonna come back here for me. It's not something I wasn't expecting. I just thought he'd be...subtler."

Kate shrugs. "Family feuds are hardly ever subtle. Susan and I usually set each other's things on fire when we were growing up."

"Susan set your things on fire?"

"Well." Kate grins around the rim of her mug. "Maybe." She adds more creamer to her coffee. "So what're you gonna do about it?"

"Huh?"

"You know. What's the plan? Your brother put a _dead deer_ in your bathtub. That's like some straight up Godfather shit."

"You watch too much television."

"Says you." She spoons a disgusting amount of sugar into her coffee. "I've been to war," she says quietly. Clint knows. "This is that calm before the storm shit."

"No it isn't." Clint sets down his mug. "This is me and Barney and that's it. And I want you to stay as far away from it as possible. Get out of town, go on vacation, take a field trip. I don't care. But if Barney and me are going head to head, then you're not going to be in the same country as he is until I know he's out of commission."

" _Excuse me?_ "

"You heard me, Hawkeye. It's an order."

"Bull _shit._ " Kate slams down her mug. "Bullshit! You don't give orders and we aren't _soldiers._ We're Hawkeyes. There's a _fucking difference._ " She throws up her hands. "You know what? I _am_ leaving. I'm going home because I have a paper due tomorrow and I've got to present it and then I've got to have dinner with my father and I've got to pay my phone bill and call my sister. I've got a hundred other things to do that are more interesting then standing here and listening to you list all the reasons I shouldn't give a shit. Because you know what? It sucks. It really sucks."

Clint only flinches a little bit when she slams the door. Lucky lays down at his feet.

"Yeah. Me, too."

 

 

 

"Word on the street is you and your girlfriend broke up." Logan spits into the snow. "Too bad."

"What? I don't...are you talking about Katie?" Logan nods. "Kate's not my girlfriend."

"She's not?" Spidey drops down from the balcony above and scowls. "Aww, man, I got snow in my booties."

Logan groans. "Please. Stop calling them booties."

"Hey, guy, it's just what they are."

"How about," Clint says through his teeth, "we talk about the fact that you're swingin' around _calling Kate Bishop my girlfriend._ Dude." Clint kicks snow at him. "Uncool. She's like fifteen."

"She's twenty-going-to-be-twenty-one, as she has said no less than fifty-seven separate times. She's way older than fifteen. Kinda. But you did fight. That's what Tommy said anyway. Then again, he's a bit of a gossip."

"Yeah, we fought."

Logan spits again. "'Bout what?"

"Something stupid."

"It's always stupid." 

Clint nods. "Was. Is. Doesn't matter much now. We just--"

"No, but they're called booties."

"No one _fucking cares_ about what you call them!" screams someone across the road, nursing a bloody nose.

"Yeah, well you're _welcome_ , asshole, for saving your life!" Clint shouts back. "Whatever. It's almost February. How come it's still fucking snowing?" He shakes his head. "I'm going home. I've got actual shit to do today, besides saving these wastrels." He slings his bow over his back. "Peace."

"Whatever." Logan spits. 

Spidey pushes his mask up, sticks out his tongue. "Gross."

Clint walks the blocks back to his place, thinking he'll call Kate when he gets there, or maybe she'll already be there. She does that a lot, after they fight. Comes over, buys Lucky a present and gives him the cold shoulder until his apologizes. Or she does. Usually it's him. Usually it's his fault. 

The door's unlocked when he gets there, and Clint feels like he's pulled out a splinter when he pushes it open, expecting to see Kate on the sofa, feet propped up on on the coffee table as she reads. In retrospect, he shouldn't have been surprised that she wasn't there at all. 

In retrospect, he should have seem this coming. 

In retrospect, he should have stayed home.

 

 

 

"Whoa there, little brother. Careful gettin' up. You ran into my fist pretty hard." Clint feels Barney's hands on his back, sitting him up right and hauling him into a chair. He barely registers the ziptie locking up with a quick _shick_ before Barney splashes some water in his face. "Wakey, wakey, Clint. Mornin', sunshine. How's it goin'?"

"Go to hell."

"You aren't bein' near as agreeable as I thought you'd be," Barney says, frowning. "Gotta admit, though, this was a whole lot easier that it was s'posed to be." He unsheaths a knife from his belt and fiddles with the handle. "You got rid of my present."

"Yeah, sorry we didn't get it made into sausages. Couldn't find the right butcher."

"We?"

"Barney."

"Yeah, I heard there were two Hawkeyes muckin' about. I was hopin' to meet her, y'know. Wanted to introduce myself. Wanted to meet someone you actually had the nerve to share the limelight with. S'not the brother I know. But, hey. Things change. People change. I guess dyin' and gettin' divorced and gettin' your ass handed to you over and over again just makes you wanna...share the wealth." Barney sighs, slipping the knife back into its sheath. "S'nice dog you got there. Sorry I had to take care of him--"

"If you--"

"He ain't dead, brother. I got more propriety than that, at least. I _like_ dogs," he adds. Like this makes it any better. Clint wonders how much longer before Barney makes a move. There's gonna be blood, he knows that for sure. He's not sure his brother won't kill him, because he promised he would, ages ago. "I'm not gonna kill you," Barney says quietly. They've always been able to read each other. "Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever. I would like my money back, little brother. I know you've been using it to cause trouble. Making friends in low places. Invested in some quality realestate. That's fine. That's good. Real proud, truthfully.

"But I'd like it back, now. If you please."

"How much?"

Barney laughs. "All of it, Clint. Every single dime. You wanna know what it's like to have not a penny to your name--"

"I know how that feels," Clint says. "You know I know how that feels."

"Yeah, I know you do."

 

 

 

Did he watch her bathe in the river? Or was it the porcelain tub of the West Coast mansion, its white bottom reflecting her peach feet while she stepped into hot water and beckoned him with her hips.

Did he make love to her in the water? It certainly felt like he did. He said her name enough. He gave her everything. She gave him everything. He was half a man before he met her, but less than that when she was gone. 

He is dreaming about her, though he promised himself he wouldn't. Somewhere between dreams and wakefulness, a black haired angel. Sunglasses glinting. A dog licking his face. 

"Welcome back to the world of the living, Mr. Barton."

 

 

 

"How long was I out?"

"Dunno." Kate hands him another ice pack. "Barney was gone when I got here. Left a note." She hands him an envelope. "Awful nice of him."

"They don't make men like Barney anymore." Kate huffs, watching him tear open the envelope. "It's a map."

"Fabulous," she mutters, getting up and filling a glass full of water from the tap. "Drink. You look awful." 

"Prefer somethin' stronger."

"Tough." She sits back down next to him. "What does he want?"

"Money. Blood. The usual."

"So give him the money."

"I can't do that, Kate. The building, the tennants..."

"Yeah..." She picks up the envelope and turns it over. "He wants to meet you tomorrow."

"You can't go."

"Wasn't asking," she says quietly. "You wanna go get your ass killed, fine. You go do that." 

"I'm not gonna get killed," he mutters. "Barney just wants money. I'll take care of that."

"Ask Stark."

"That's not how this works, Kate. Big boys handle their own problems. Even Tony Stark understands that."

"Yeah, well you suck at handling your own problems," she mutters. Clint can't really disagree. "Order something to eat," she says quietly. "I'm hungry and I hate you. I only have the energy for one."

 

 

 

Clint wakes up with Kate's head pillowed in his lap, her hair spread out like webbing across his couch and twisted around his fingers. He loves this girl, he thinks. He would die for this girl. What a girl she is, he doesn't say. What a girl. 

"S'not time to be awake," she murmurs, shifting onto her back and squinting up at him. "Go back to bed."

"I could give him the money. Make him promise to...to take care of the building."

"He wouldn't do that," Kate says, sitting up.


	4. there's a wing metaphor here [clint/carol - explicit]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A friend on tumblr ships this and, hey, you know what? I do, too. I pretty much ship everything, honestly. Like, it's a problem. Anyway, I figured a little bit of friends-with-benefits was in order for these two, but I never did get around to wrapping it up. There's an unwritten scene in here where Carol goes out before Clint wakes up and _buys him a blender_ just so she can make herself a shake. So.

Clint wails. "Oh my _god_ you broke my arm. You broke my _fucking arm._ "

"Ugh stop being a _baby_ about it." Carol lands a bone-shattering kick to his shin and gets up. "Face it, you lost. You owe me a seafood dinner. Or fifty bucks. Either is good."

"Oh my _god_ , Danvers. You _broke my arm._ "

"She didn't," Bruce notes from his brooding spot against the counter. "You're fine."

" _You're not an actual doctor._ " Clint whimpers and tucks his arm against his chest. "This is my shooting arm."

Carol scrunches her face up, judging mode on full blast. "Both of your arms are your shooting arms, doofus. Take a shot and grow some balls." Clint scowls and reaches for the tequila. "Atta boy." She ruffles his hair on her way to the bar. Clint takes his shot and follows her. 

"I'm not buying you dinner."

"Then fork over the fifty bucks. You're the millionare here."

"Why a seafood dinner?"

"Because I wanted to get a surf and turf. Are you just gonna follow me around and whine like a baby 'cause you lost?" Carol shakes her head. "Maybe you have gone soft."

"Uh, excuse you. I am the literal opposite of soft. I am hard."

"Wow."

"Dammit."

Carol bites her bottom lip. "That was good, Barton. _Real_ smooth."

"Come on you knew you were gonna win."

"Maybe. I don't like to play games I might lose though. You know me better than that."

Clint huffs and flops onto a couch. It's late and he should get home and feed lucky. He catches Carol glancing at her watch and nudges her with his elbow. 

"Don't know much about seafood dinners, but we could get a slice. Gotta bring something home to the mutt."

"You feed that dog _pizza?_ "

"What? He likes it." Carol shakes her head, but she's grinning, getting up and looking around for her coat. "Yeah? We on?"

"Yeah, okay. Bet you can't eat an entire sausage and mushroom pizza by yourself," she says, taking his hand and pulling him toward the kitchen.

"Oh, I can."

Bruce makes a face. "You two are disgusting."

 

 

 

Clint can, actually, eat an entire sausage and mushroom pizza on his own. He just doesn't want to.

"Knew it."

"Can you _not_ be gross for five seconds, _Cheeseburger Danvers._ "

Carol points her glass of tea at his face. "I'm gonna go back in time and smack myself for ever telling you that story."

"You tell me the best things when you're high on pain killers."

"I do, this is true. I am an incredibly gifted post-battle friend." She smiles. She's got a really _awesome_ smile, Clint thinks. Killer legs, thighs that could pinch his head off, blonde to boot. Jesus, he's gotta get off this blonde kick. Red-heads, too. Brunettes. Women in general. Yeah. Good idea. Great idea. 

"Carol."

"Mmhm."

"You remember I promised you I'd be like, totally honest with you?"

"Uh. No?"

"Well I promised myself I was gonna be totally honest with people."

"I really do not like where this is headed."

Clint groans. "I really wanna kiss you. Like it's sort of out of control how bad I wanna kiss you."

Carol blinks, stops chewing and swallows. "What?"

"Yeah, uh, see? You were right. This went in a bad place. Let's be grownups about it and pretend it didn't happen. That's what thirty-somethings do right?"

"No." Carol pushes her chair back and stands. Yeah, he's getting punched. Or walked out on. Clint can't decide which is worse at this point.

"Yeah, okay, I'll just--" She grabs him by his jacket and pulls him in, shoving their mouths together. Clint always forgets that Carol has next to zero amounts of shame or shyness when it comes to this sort of thing. And also that she's like a head shorter than him. He groans a little ridiculously into her mouth and the cashier starts yelling at them. 

"Take me to your place," Carol says.

Clint licks his lips. "Right. Yeah. My place." 

 

 

 

Okay so there are women who are good at sex and Clint has met them. There are women who excel at blow jobs and Clint has met them, too. There are women who are gorgeous and wonderful to look at but are not so great at sex and yeah, Clint's met them, too. Honestly, he's usually good enough for the both of them and if she's happy then, hey. What's the problem?

Clint is never going to be good enough for Carol Danvers.

He knows this the second she gets into his apartment and starts stripping out of her clothes, kissing him whenever she can and generally taking charge of the situaton. Clint suspects there's an actual reason for this, that Carol's obsessive need for control and perfection in her life is definitely running off into their potential future sex life. But she's naked and walking backwards to his bedroom and he realizing he just doesn't _care._

Well, no. He does care. Clint cares about Carol a lot. He loves her, the way he thinks he's supposed to love his teammates. He wonders if she's thinking about Jessica. If they have those rules. He wonders if the rules other women have made for each other even _apply_ to Carol and Jess. He wonders if he will ever be able to separate them in his mind. He wonders--

"Oh my god, you _have_ to pay attention to me. Like, you're pulling a Dexter on me please do not look at your watch."

"You think I could get distracted?"

"Well, you're certainly _acting_ distracted." 

Clint turns her over and spreads his hands out by her shoulders, grinning down at her. "Focused enough for you now, _Cap?_ "

"Do you pull rank in bed? Because I would never pull rank in bed."

Clint hums and leans down, pressing his lips against her neck and kissing slowly, dragging this down between her breasts. She sighs. "You can pull rank on me any time, you know that."

"You're terrible. I don't want to have sex with you anymore."

"Mmm, you don't sound too convinced."

Carol kisses him. "You're right. I'm not. Please don't talk me out of it because I really wanted to kiss you instead of beating you at arm wrestling." Clint huffs against her ear and reaches over to the cabinet by his bed, fumbling for a condom. "That's good, boyscout. Always prepared."

"Call me boyscout _one_ more time."

Carol pushes herself up on her elbows as Clint sits back, flicking open the wrapper and rolling it down the length of his cock.

"Boyscout."

"Wicked, _wicked_ woman." He hitches one of her legs over his shoulder, reaching forward and brushing his thumb over her clit. She makes this god-awful _perfect_ noise and Clint pushes further, fingers dipping between her folds and inside. She gasps, letting her head fall back on the pillows and smiles. "S'good?"

"I am not going to give you constant verbal _holy shit_. Okay. Yeah. _Yeah._ " Clint grins and crooks his fingers in deep again. "It's good. You're awful. Like, really awful." She sighs and rolls her hips into the movement. Clint thinks he could do _this_ all night, finger her open until she's dripping down his hand, until she's coming all over his fingers. But his cock is aching against his stomach and he pushes himself forward, pressing the tip just inside her cunt, stretching. "Clint. _Clint._ You have to. Right now. You have to, I--"

"Easy, girly. Easy. I got you." He pushes in slowly, letting her adjust as he goes. Clint leans forward and captures her bottom lip between his teeth. "You're beautiful. God you're beautiful." Clint groans and pulls out, almost all the way, and thrusts back in again. He already knows Carol's gonna bottom for a good ten more seconds before--

Oh. Four seconds. 

She grins and straddles him, wrapping her hand around his cock and lining him up, dropping down way too fast. " _Jesus--_ "

"And we're back in business."

"Can't resist a lady who knows what she wants."

Carol clings to his shoulders, fucking herself on his cock. For what it's worth, Clint _tries_ to put more effort into it. Usually he does.

But really, he's never gonna be able to keep up with Carol. He knew that from the start. 

He finally sits up and braces his hands on her back, watching as she gets herself off. She keeps going once she's come, cupping his face in her hands and grinning at him as he pushes up and up, trying to get that little bit of relief. He feels like he's dying, he feels like he's being turned inside out and it's funny how he knows how all those things feel. He thinks Carol might know, too.


	5. dark avengers feels [karla/lester - mature]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have to say I blame my RP antics for half of this. Plus these two were mackin' when no one was looking all the time, I absolutely know it. I wish I could tell you what was wrong with me, but I just have feelings about these two. There was an idea for this to be canon divergence -- Karla and Lester leave NYC and start a life of quiet crime, settling into a nice suburb and grow old and increasingly criminal together.

Karla crosses her arms and looks him over, gives him a shove and says, "Could have gotten killed out there."

Lester sneers, "You'd like that, wouldn't you," and he expects her to punch him, laugh, shrug and grin.

She just blinks, closing the small bit of space between them. Lester watches her lick her thumb, pink on pink, and feels her swipe it over his brow. The skin stings. "No," she says quietly. "I wouldn't."

" _Get a room!_ " Mac bellows. 

 

 

 

"This is my shower, Lester."

"I know that," he says, shutting the door behind him. Karla looks tired, they all look tired, this job is hard and he wants to sleep for a hundred years when it all finally falls apart. Because it will. It has to.

He wonders if Karla would go to sleep with him. In the very literal sense of the world. He thinks they could cacoon themselves away and wake up at peace. It would be a kinder fate than the one he knows is coming for him. Karla finishes undressing. "Are you coming in or not?" 

Lester follows suit, stripping out of his clothes and following her into the shower. She stands dejectedly under the shower head, letting it run over her hair for a long while. Lester finally puts a hand on her shoulder, turning her toward him. "What's the matter with you?" It's meant to be threatening, it's meant to assert something. But it comes out weak on his tongue, and he uses the hesitation in his own words to kiss her at the same time she pulls him in. 

Later, after he eats her out in the shower, and she fucks him wordlessly in her bed, he'll realize she never answered his question.

But he'll also know she never really needed to. 

 

 

 

This is the first time he's ever really _looked_ at her while they fuck. She keeps making these noises like she's going to fly off the edge of the world and Lester can't stop staring, can't stop listening. His rhythm is steady and she kisses him, words melting against his tongue.

" _More. Please--_ " Karla cuts off with a whine and he kisses her without thinking, bringing a thumb to her clit and trying to pull out every noise he can. " _Fuck--_ " 

"I know. I know, I've got it, I've got this." She nods and all he can hear now is the wet noise of his cock moving inside of her, their hips smacking together and the noise high in her throat as she keens, comes hard and clenching around him and he lets go, gasping for breath against her shoulder and wondering how he got so lost so quickly. 

He stares at the smooth expanse of her naked back for a long time, wondering if the answer is in her, somewhere.


End file.
